A matter of perspective

Today has been a truly amazing day spent with great people in our Central Eastern European Region. Humbly invited to join the speakers corner by Krisztián Mészáros I headed directly from an Executive Group Management team meeting in H?rsholm to Budapest via Frankfurt arriving around midnight Wednesday.

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Starting the day with the classic early bird run in always beautiful Budapest alongside River Danube on the Buda side - cross over Margaret Island passing by the majestic Hungarian Parliament - off to the Liberty Square and the Holocaust memorial before finally aiming West towards the hotel through the Jewish Quarter. Budapest has for good reasons been labelled as Eastern Europe's answer to Paris but to me it is so much more. A true melting pot of culture and heritage with proud legacy from both the Roman, the Byzantine, the Hunnic, the Austro-Hungarian and probably more empires since it was founded. While Budapest is dated 1873 and formed by a merger of Pest, Buda and óbuda there are signs of settlements all the way back to 4th century BC.

Today we stand on the shoulders of many women and men before us in a civilization where we spend up to 90% of our time indoors and desperately need to bring fresh air and daylight into buildings to properly function as living organisms. In VELUX we are working to advance wellbeing leveraging daylight and fresh air. In a proud city with outstanding architecture and blue sky above. I am sure that the early settlers in the area understood and appreciated the interplay between outside and inside even better than most people today. My mantra is - every house has a sky above - why not open up the roof to get unlimited view to the stars - nothing is more mind stretching than looking into eternity. Hence the article head line - "a matter of perspetive". I am sure that Tycho Brahe would agree with me on that one.

Each of us individually might only be here on Planet Earth an almost insignficant time in a historic perspective - but by contributing to the wellbeing coalition for people and planet we ensure the institutional legacy is passed on even stronger to the next in line generations. As a father to three fastly growing boys - I would love to leave behind a better place for them to thrive and prosper when my time comes.

Today was a special day where I was truly humbled by the fact that our dear Ukrainian colleagues Yuri Tkachenko and Uliana Momont had decided to drive from Kiev to Budapest with special border crossing permission issued yesterday afternoon by the Ukrainian Government. At 02:30 a text message ticked in on Krisztián Mészáros phone saying "we made it over the border" - and at 07:00 Yuri and Uliana arrived in Budapest just in time for breakfast and conference start.

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Then suddenly the indirect flight hassle through Frankfurt was not really anything to mention.

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It also reminded me of something I heard recently in a DOAC (tm) podcast held by Steve Bartlett featuring Adam Grant. Here Adam talked about cognitive entrenchment which governs a phenomenon where an incumbent organization simply misses to transform and adapt because of a too uniform way of thinking. Sort of institutionalized herd mentality and thinking. Lack of diversity and inclusion leads to conformity and agreement but reduced progress.

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This has detrimental impact on ability to stay high performing and atuned with the dynamic and ever changing marketplace. Over a period of time studies show that such cognitive entrenched organizations will fall behind due to conformity, bias and institutionalized practices all converging towards same ideology / way of thinking.

Therefore I am truly grateful for the the team having arranged Nora Varady from WeAreOpen to join the day talking about unconscious bias, diversity, inclusion & micro aggression.

To sum up here when darkness has made its entry in the Northern Hemisphere. Spring is just around the corner. If you ever feel limited by myopia I am sure you have great people in your network too that can act as catalysts for reminding you to always look beyond your own little convenient entrenchment pond.

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A curious mindset equals a growth mindset. A humble mindset leads to curiosity. Suddenly an unbreakable iterative circle of progress is formed.

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Today was indeed a wake up moment. Delivered by two energetic colleagues who had been on a true nightrider "back to the future" mission to come and participate in wellbeing discussions with colleagues.

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To me - there has always been something profoundly inspiring in working with great people from all over the world - but today again reconfirmed my deeply rooted love for Eastern Europe. It feels like putting on one of your favorite records. Or walking into your grand parents home. The sounds. The scents. The vibes. Your senses will immediately recognize where you are. The pulse beating underneath the asphalt. The sound of streets coming alive. The smell of freshly baked bread mixed together with the dense exhaust from cold early generation diesel engines.

And yes - my grand parents were upbeat :)

?To Yuri and Uliana - I am looking forward to visiting you both in Kiev.

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